


Nightmare

by holbytlanna



Series: Advent Calendar 2020 [6]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: AU, Angst, Badass Jack Dalton, Bless Jack Dalton, Family Fluff, Fix-It, Gen, Jack isn't dead because fuck canon, Jack's Triumphant Return, Nightmare, No Major Character Death, Sort Of, Spitefic, Team as Family, he wasn't ever gone, trigger warning: suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:40:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28788861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holbytlanna/pseuds/holbytlanna
Summary: It feels like ever since Jack left, Mac's been trapped in a nightmare (because he has been)No Major Character Death. None. Because Jack Dalton belongs to us now.
Relationships: Jack Dalton & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Series: Advent Calendar 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2042773
Comments: 36
Kudos: 59





	Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> The Author Is Dead And I'm Getting My Inheritance

Mac feels the world fall out from under him. He’s dreaming, he must be. How could this be possible?

And yet here he is, in his dress uniform which he hasn’t worn in years. Desi, at his side, in hers. Their relationship is still up in the air, with no real boundaries or communication, but she’s here with him now, and that has to count for something. Riley and Matty and Bozer don’t have military dress, but they are in black, head to toe. They stand together, as the family they once were. 

Mac scans the people attending, to avoid focusing on the words being said. If he does, then the very tenuous grip he has on his grief will snap and he’ll absolutely lose it, in front of all these people. Sarah and her husband are here. Diane. Carlos is nearby, sporting his green beret and the dress uniform that’s been well-filled out by his mother-in-law’s pasteles. Mac thinks he sees Dawn in the back. Even Frankie came, and Mac would give anything for Jack’s funeral to be as false as the one they went to for her.

There’s a crowd of Daltons. Ma Dalton cries softly into her daughter’s shoulder, and cousin Nick and crazy cousin George — both of whom look so much like Jack that Mac has to look away — are consoling little Dalton nieces and nephews. 

“He’s gone to be with Papa,” they say, to comfort the little ones. Their words are beautiful, about heaven and guardian angels and stars. Mac isn’t quite sure what he believes as far as an afterlife goes, but he clings to the words, desperate for some kind of consolation. Any kind of consolation.

His life has been a mess without Jack. He’s been going on missions, sure, and he looks put-together most of the time. His relationship with Desi has been… turbulent. But sometimes it’s good. He still has Riley and Bozer and Matty. He saves the world.

But he’s lost  _ so much.  _

It seems like when Jack left, everything in the whole world fell apart. An aunt he didn’t know existed appeared out of nowhere with a crackpot organisation started by his mother, hell-bent on restarting humanity, like a bad science fiction novel (Mac remembers her getting sick,  _ he remembers.  _ Car accidents don’t kill you the way cancer does). His dad died to save him, like  _ that  _ would ever happen. Desi joining the team felt like a good thing for a while but they just kept fighting. Leanna left when Phoenix shut down (The Phoenix shut down? How did that even happen?), devastating Bozer. And Russ, whom Mac never fully trusted (who just  _ buys  _ a government agency?), and who never fully trusted him. Where did the man who walked away from everything he knew because he didn’t trust his employer go? Mac feels like he’s watching his own life unfold, sometimes. Just stuck watching as a stranger acts out his life. 

It all feels like a bad dream — things just don’t add up — but you can’t dream up entire years in one night, can you?

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do after this. He’s only sure of one thing. He’s gonna get blackout drunk tonight when everyone goes home and leaves him to his dark and empty house. It’s exactly what he did the day Jack left him. It’s what he did the first Cairo Day without Jack. It’s what he did on Jack’s birthdays without him. It’s what he did the day he found out that Jack had been killed in an explosion. 

Because explosions are Mac’s  _ entire job.  _ If he had been there… if he had fought harder to let Jack take him along…. Mac can’t stop thinking. What if, what if, what if. 

He knows drinking isn’t a good solution. The scientist in him knows exactly what he’s doing to his body and brain by doing it. And the soldier in him has seen too many good men lost to the bottom of a bottle. Jack always told him never to drink alone. 

Mac has never felt more alone than watching the crowd of people who have all had their lives touched by Jack Dalton’s mill around, mingling sorrows and stories and tears. While Jack was gone hunting Kovacs, there was always hope that he’d come strolling in through the War Room doors one day, with a smile and an off-key song on his lips. But now… There’s no hoping left. Just a Jack-less eternity for Mac.

Mac has never actively tried to take his life. He’s been reckless, he’s thrown himself into danger, he’s considered himself an acceptable casualty. But he’s never been suicidal. 

Drinking changes that, tonight. All he can hear is “You go kaboom, I go kaboom,” over and over and over in his head. He is desperate to hear Jack’s voice again, not just in his memories. He could have saved Jack from the explosion, he knows he could have. And even if he couldn’t, he would have died by Jack’s side. The way it was always meant to be. “You go kaboom, I go kaboom” was never a suicide pact, per se, but tonight, drowned in alcohol in the silence of his too-big, too-empty, too-quiet house, maybe it is. 

Mac cries and cries and cries and cries and cries

—————

Jack sat bolt upright, reaching for his gun. Where is he, what woke him,  _ where’s Mac? _

The location was revealed easily enough. He was in Mac’s spare bedroom. The one that’s been “Jack’s Room” for years, now. The closet and dresser were stuffed with his clothes, except for a few drawers that were Riley’s. 

What woke him took longer to decipher. Jack was a light sleeper. Years of training had made him into one. He would wake at the smallest sound, which is why his kids learned not to sneak around. A regular noise won’t wake him. Something out of the ordinary must have happened, in order to get him to jolt awake like he had. 

He sat stock still, listening. And he did hear a soft sound. It was almost buried under the hum of the air conditioner and the ticking hall clock, but Jack could pick out distinctly the sound of Mac crying.

Without another moment’s hesitation, Jack flung the covers off and hustled to Mac’s room. It was dark, and Mac lay curled in his bed, covers askew. He was crying, but it didn’t look like he was awake. Just sobbing in his sleep.

“Mac. Hey buddy, wake up for me.” Jack sat on the edge of the bed next to Mac, putting a gentle hand on a shaking shoulder. Mac tended to lash out if startled out of a nightmare, but Jack would rather walk into work tomorrow with a black eye than let his partner stay trapped in whatever nightmare his big brain had cooked up for him. “Mac, wake up, it’s alright. I’ll make it alright, I’m here. Wake up, hoss, I’ve got you.”

Mac came back awake with a strangled sob. No fight, no recoiling from the touch he didn’t yet recognise. Mac just curled into himself and leftover sobs shook his body.

Jack rubbed his knuckles gently down Mac’s back and across his shoulder blades, murmuring softly to him as if he were a frightened child or skittish horse. Mac was neither of those things, usually, but right now, Jack was desperate to make whatever was wrong for his boy right again.

Finally, Mac’s sobs quieted enough that he could whisper wetly “Jack?”

“Yeah, Mac, I’m here.”

Mac looked up at him as if he’d never seen him before. “Then am I dead? I didn’t kill myself yet.”

Jack felt his heart just about stop, and his eyes widened. He had no idea what Mac was talking about, but he didn’t like it. “Y’ain’t dead, hoss, and neither am I. Let’s get you sitting up a bit, huh, so you can breathe better.” Mac grabbed onto Jack’s wrist as they maneuvered to sitting next to each other against the headboard of Mac’s bed. Tabbing his pulse with a desperation Jack recognised from the number of times he had needed to do the same. Dreams where Mac dies often left Jack needing to be sure his kid is still breathing, still with him.

“You feelin’ that alright, Mac? I’m alive and ticking. It sounds like you’ve had a doozy of a nightmare.”

Mac looked completely and utterly haunted. “How are you here? When did you get back?” he asked. He hadn’t even tried to dry the tears on his face, which worried Jack more than a little. Mac didn’t like to show that he’d been crying, not even in front of Jack.

“Back from where, hoss? I ain’t gone nowhere, not without you.”

“Then… then how much of it was a dream?”

“You tell me. Where’d I go? Someplace fun?”

Mac squeezed his eyes shut tight, his face twisting into a grimace. Jack backpedalled, realising maybe a bit too late that humour wouldn’t be a lot of help in this situation. “Easy, easy. Mac, I’m right here. I didn’t leave you, and I never will. You know that? I’m with you for good, brother. It was just a dream, I never left your side.”

“It felt so real,” Mac gasped. “You got called to lead a global task force to hunt down Kovacs—”

“Kovacs?” Jack interrupted. “Tiberius Kovacs? That bastard’s dead. Very dead. Shot him myself, point blank.”

“Well that’s what everyone thought, but he resurfaced. And they wanted you to lead the hunt for him, since you did the last time.” Mac was leaning more on Jack than the headboard now, needing tactile reassurance that his dream was false. “You left and then… and then everything went to hell, Jack. Everything. Nothing was right. My mom, and Codex, and I had to go rogue and Russ and Desi thought I was a traitor. And it was years. You were gone so long and I always hoped… I always hoped you’d come back but you never did. There wasn’t even a body, Jack, there wasn’t a body to bury.” Mac’s voice trailed off into sobs again, and Jack held Mac close against his chest. 

“Mac, buddy, I don’t understand half of the things that happened in your dream, but I know one thing: I’m alive. I’m here with you right now. We’re both awake, you hear?”

Mac nodded, trying to calm himself. Jack reached for the nalgene water bottle Mac kept on his nightstand, and had Mac drink some. The cold water seemed to help some to calm him, because Mac was able to continue.

“Something in me knew it was a dream, because it couldn’t have been real. But dreams don’t last for years on end. There was no way to know, just events that didn’t line up. Why would I stay working with Russ when I never trusted him? Why would the Phoenix disband, why would Leanna leave Bozer? That just doesn’t make sense. And I’m not the kind of person to pursue a relationship I know is doomed, am I? Desi was great and all, but we were never really any good for each other. We both knew that.”

Jack had to interrupt again. “Desi?”

“Yeah. She was who replaced you after you left. You trained her yourself.”

“Desiree??” Jack was beyond stunned. He hadn’t been in contact with Desiree Nguyen for years, and he was almost positive he had never mentioned her to Mac. Some things about what Mac was saying were accurate, though. If Jack ever was forced to leave, Desiree was the only person he would trust to watch Mac’s back, other than Sam Cage. And Des and Mac together? Jack honestly shuddered at the thought.  _ They’d be at each other like cats and dogs,  _ he knew. Maybe they could be friends, but they’d drive each other crazy if they tried to make a relationship work.

“Mac, I don’t know where your head goes when you’re asleep, but I think you were in some kind of parallel world, brother. Because I’ve never once mentioned Desiree to you, and your dream is scarily accurate.”

Mac frowned. “I don’t think that’s possible, Jack.”

“Well why not?” he countered. “What about all the other crazy stuff? Me dying and not leaving a body? You staying on with someone you don’t trust? Whatever the hell this Codex nonsense is, I dunno.”

“Oh, that’s a secret evil organisation that my mom and aunt founded to restart the human race through genocide.”

Jack blinked. “Uh. I think you’ve been watching too many bad movies with Bozer. You don’t have an aunt. We have literally traced your entire family tree, remember? We were trying to figure out just how Scottish you are, Mister Angus MacGyver. Both of your parents were only children. And there’s no way your mom, the person who painted half the Christmas decorations and wore blocky cardigans that I know you have in a box in the attic and who kept a keepsake box of your macaroni preschool crafts, would want to destroy the world her son lived in.”

Mac closed his eyes, letting Jack’s words surround him, and the memories that went with the words. He let them wash away the dream, already beginning to fade. He was home, Jack was living with him, Leanna would be joining them on their mission tomorrow. His dad was alive, and though he and Mac were achieving a rocky peace between them, they would never be close. His memories of his mother could live untainted by imagined horrors. He had never met Desi, and maybe never would. The Phoenix never disbanded. His family was whole. Jack was alive. 

Just thinking those words weren’t enough. “You’re alive,” he whispered, breathing in the smell of leather and gunpowder and  _ home.  _

Jack was running his fingers through Mac’s hair gently. “I’m alive. Right here.”

“I was going to follow you,” Mac said softly, ashamed. “I started drinking after you left, and I got so drunk after your funeral and I was going to die. I was going to leave everyone to try and find you again.”

There were tears in Jack’s eyes and his voice when he responded. “Mac, I’m never going to leave you. I’m always by your side, no matter what, okay?”

Mac nodded. He knew that wasn’t a promise Jack could keep forever, but that was okay. He and Jack were inseparable.

And then something tickled his memory, and he chuckled. 

“What’s so funny?”

“You gave Riley the GTO. In your will.”

“What? No.” Jack sounded scandalised. “No, no, no, Riley gets the Shelby. That’s always been the plan. Riley gets the Shelby, Bozer gets my movies, and the GTO’s yours, man. Y’all can fight over the rest.” Mac was outright laughing now. “That should have been your clue that it was a dream, man, there’s no way I’d give Riley the GTO. I love her to death, but the GTO was my Pop’s and it’s mine now and it’ll be yours. That’s a father-to-son kind of car.”

Mac laughed sleepily. The dream was fading. Oh, he’d remember it, but it wasn’t his life. His life was far from perfect, but it was nowhere near as messed up as that dark dream-world. Tomorrow, he would head in to work, saving the world with his family. The most drama they had was debating whether Bruce Willis could beat Jackie Chan in a fight, or whether or not Ewoks ate people. They trusted each other without question, cared about each other without boundaries. 

  
Jack stayed for the rest of the night, and Mac curled up next to him with his head pressed against his chest. He could hear the steady beating of Jack’s heart, reminding him with every beat that  _ all is well, I’m here, I’ve got you, I’ll never leave you. _


End file.
